Is it true 40% of American households recieve a direct financial benefit from the government? 40%? Thats the result of creeping tyranny...trickle down misery...just what the existing regime wants, comrade.

I'm not sure how you can conclude this. Which party passes campaign finance bills? Other than McCain, can you think of any Replublicans who would support it?

I agree that Obama has been disappointing. But you are concluding that he doesn't want to change the system when I would argue he does and has tried, but has been stymied by the opposition party. That's a very different situation.

The biggest spike occurred under George Bush in 2008. The second biggest spike occurred in 2009 during the Bush depression. After that the increases return to the trend line.

Anyway this is all more lying by people who don't give a rat's ass about the truth. I could ask you what actions were taken by Obama (or Bush for that matter) to increase disability rolls, but you'd run away again. The bottom line is that during economic hardship, people will use whatever resources they can obtain.

Since Reagan and the neoconservatives have destroyed our economy over 30 years, (clearly visible on the graph) the number of people on disability has risen substantially. This is the result of the wealth disparity that you so actively covet and has nothing to do with the Democrats.

And for the record, people who take Michael Savage seriously are brain dead. No exceptions.

Maybe the solution is to understax income, especially higher incomes, and then when the entire system fails, hope that we then somehow get to a "LIMITED, CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT, WITH A SOUND MONEY SYSTEM,"

rather than some terrible fascist police state controlled by the corporations and plutocrats.

Obama wanted to come across as a new type of politician, and the US ate it up...but he is more of the same.

He's not more of the same. He started out trying to be a force for good by actively working to pass reforms and ended up as little more than a blockade against right-wingers who are trying to dismantle everything that holds this country together.

You really want the Ryan plan to pass? You want to see an end to Medicare? Social Security? Unemployment? Food stamps? You want billionaires (with a B) stockpiling more billions as taxes on capital gains, interest, dividends, and inheritance is dropped to ZERO?

You know something? I'm stunned just writing the last paragraph. I can't imagine how ANYONE right, left, or center can possibly support such an atrocity as the Ryan budget. It's so radical that you'll have people like Warren Buffett paying NOTHING WHATSOEVER in taxes while a single mom working 60 hours a week is sending a large part of her check to Washington.

It's vile beyond description, yet this disgusting piece of shit passed the House of Representatives in a near party line vote.

If Republicans get the Senate back, Obama will literally be the only man left who can save this country from hell. This is not an exaggeration. It's very clear which party wants all elections dominated by money and which party is willing to set limits. Don't be disingenuous and claim otherwise.

There are more people, less of them are working and the unemployment rate went down. Amazing. Pretty cool what you can do with numbers when you are the government.

I've been hearing this argument for three decades now. Unemployment methodology might not be accurate, but it is consistent with itself. The job market HAS been better and everyone I know in business is reporting it.

You've been hearing about this for 30 years? Really? Thats especially interesting since this situation hasn't occurred in the last 30 years. The last time massive numbers of people ran out of unemployment benefits and fell off the survey was in the 70's. Then the number of women entering the work force more than exceeded the number of people dropping out of the survey so it wasn't comparable at all. What is happening today has no precedent since the depression.

What is your definition of the "job market" that's doing better. The number of people working is less than 10 years ago despite the population increasing by 30 million. What would worse look like?

Huge numbers of people are taking an involuntary early retirement because there are simply no jobs. With unemployment run out, drawing down IRA's and if possible collecting social security is their only option to survive. Most don't have anywhere near the savings they need for this. This is not going to end well at all for them or the economy.

What is your definition of the "job market" that's doing better. The number of people working is less than 10 years ago despite the population increasing by 30 million. What would worse look like?

I'm pretty sure the number of people is higher than 10 years ago regardless of what official numbers say. Every contractor I've dealt with since I started buying real estate has one to several cash employees, often illegal, doing the work for them. The permit process has become a joke and contractors are surprised when you ask for one. The rise of the aristocracy means many more domestic jobs are necessary than even a decade ago. Prostitution is skyrocketing and sugardaddy websites are signing up thousands of girls every day. More specific to my industry, the bankruptcy "reform" act of 2005 sent almost every paralegal bankruptcy preparer underground. They are still there, but now they are on Craig's List and they CAN'T report wages because they are in violation of federal law. Then there's ebay and the explosion of people going into business selling stuff. The IRS has indicated it might crack down, but how do you enforce income tax on people buying at garage sales?

My main point is that there's more than one side here. As far as legitimate employment, everyone is reporting better job conditions. I'm not simply going to ignore it and pretend things aren't getting better.

Under Bush the debt was being paid down until the economic crisis hit
You ignorant liberals all conveniently forget that Congress 1. approved Iraq war 2. spends the money. The president doesn't have this power.

The sheer degree of bullshitting in these few assertions is commendable.

For one, the national debt grew under Bush -- no debt was being paid down:

From 2003 through 2006 consumers were borrowing & spending $1T+/yr into the economy, and the Feds were taking their cut of that over-stimulated economic activity.

And while "Congress" certainly approved the war, there are two things with that.

1) The vote in the House 252-6 (Republicans) and 82-126 (Dems). The Dems in the House largely voted against the war but the Republicans got what they wanted.

Same story in the Senate, but given the rural idiot states there were more rural idiot Dem senators voting for war.

(48-1 on the Republican side and 29-21 on the Dem side).

Clinton and Kerry did not vote wisely in 2002, but there vote did not matter since there were 12 completely pro-war idiot Dem senators to join with the 48 Republican idiot pro-war senators to get the war resolution through the Senate. In retrospect they could have voted No for the optics of a meaningless protest vote, but they gambled wrong on that.

The Iraq War was a Republican enterprise that the Bush admin dragooned this country into and trying to slough it off on the Democrats is a breathtakingly deceptive tack.

So you invoke the spector of an evil, aristocracy controlled fascist government, then mock the concept of limiting the government's power?

???

I'm not all that partisan, just because I think the democrats are far better than the republicans. But just focusing on one single issue taxes:

I have stated this at least 10 times before on this site, but my belief is 180 degrees from the typical republican's. I say that if you want to get spending under control, we should pay for our government, rather than borrowing money and undertaxing for what we spend.

If taxes were higher and more progressive and were always set to meet last years spending or current projections, then you would see the powerful (you know the same one paying for a lot of what we spend) make the necessary decisions to keep government from getting too large or too corrupt.

This isn't rocket science. It's called paying your bills and being a responsible adult.

The problem is that then how do republicans then have any power ? When we pay our bills the democrats who are less tied to the MIC and more likely to support programs for the middle class and poor, would be back in long term control of the the federal govt.

I agree that both parties are moving us toward a corporatocracy or plutocracy fascist state. But the republicans are way worse, and are the ones who have policies that can not survive any kind of democracy.

We only survive with way less big money in politics. But I don't see how we get back to how it was even 50 years ago.